Europe Diary - Post #3 by Patrick

I learned quite a lot about the Dutch Golden Age yesterday while at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. For instance, before the English became the major nautical power, the Dutch controlled most of the trade between the rest of the world. The Eastern trading route or the “Voc” had bases in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, China, and Japan. The western trading route, or West India Company had bases in Central America and all of western Africa.

Two of the greatest artists of the Golden Age were Jan Steen and Rembrandt von Rijn. Jan Steen’s paintings are easily recognizable by how chaotic they were. In his painting, The Merry Family, the scene shows a family gathered around a table doing a variety of different tasks. It was so chaotic that it was difficult to remember everything that was going on in the painting. The only part that I remember distinctly was that one of the children was balancing at the edge of the table playing a flute, while a dog was running around the table with something that I think was a sock. Rembrandt’s painting The Night Watch was originally never meant to be called that. He had named it The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq. However, because of a buildup of soot and dust in the protective lacquer, the colors appeared darker and it was dubbed the Night Watch. Once this was realized, the lacquer was removed and the true appearance of the painting was realized. However, despite the fact that it is a day scene, everything about the painting looks like it is a night scene. Thus, it remains the Night Watch.

We also went to the Van Gogh Museum which I was honestly far more impressed with than the Rijksmuseum. The Van Gogh Museum had hundreds of different works by many people who used the impressionist style including Van Gogh. One of the great impressionist paintings was one by Paul Gauguin which was of Van Gogh while he painted his Sunflowers.

We also had dinner at an Indonesian restaurant called Sama Sebo, where we had a Rijstaffel dinner which is rice along with about twenty side dishes that you pile around the rice and can mix different flavors together with the rice. I recommend it.